GnMo    I     II II 

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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


JOHN  RANDOLPH  HAYNES 

AND  DORA  HAYNES  FOUNDATION 

COLLECTION 


SOULS    ON    FIFTH 


BY  GRANVILLE  BARKER 

THE  MADRAS  HOUSE 

ANATOL 

THE  MARRYING  OF  ANN  LEETE 

THE  VOYSEY  INHERITANCE 

WASTE 

SOULS  ON   FIFTH 

In  Collaboration  ivith  Laurence  Housman 
PRUNELLA 


SOULS   ON    FIFTH 
BY  GRANVILLE    BARKER 
WITH     FRONTISPIECE 
BY    NORMAN     WILKINSON 


NON-REFERT 


£qWVAO-Q3S 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,    BROWN,    AND    COMPANY 

1916 


Copyright,  191b, 
By  Granville  Barker. 


All  rights  reserved 
Published,  April,  191 6 


Nottoooo  P«2S 

Set  up  and  electrotyped  by  J.  S.  Cushing  Co.,  Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 

Presswork  by  S.  J.  Parkhill  &  Co.,  Boston,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


SOULS   ON    FIFTH 


785577 


SOULS    ON    FIFTH 


Many  times  have  I  paced  the  relentless  street ; 
on  its  stones  that  are  harder  than  stone  was  ever 
meant  to  be  and  smoother  than  any  false  wel- 
come in  the  world. 

I  have  paced  it  at  all  hours  and  seasons  ;  when 
it  was  shadowless  in  a  burning  sun ;  with  the 
snow  clouding  and  whitening  the  night.  Why 
I  started  up  it  that  early  autumn  morning  is 
no  matter  to  anyone  but  myself.  But  never 
had  I  seen  the  Avenue  emptier,  found  it  more 
silent.  Day  would  not  dawn  yet  for  an  hour. 
The  sky  was  clear ;  as  I  went  it  grew  opaque, 
pressing  down  upon  the  world.  There  was 
an  eddying  wind,  which  surprised  one  at  the 
street  corners.  Since  I  was  alone  and  rather 
lonelier    than    that,    my    spirit    sought    refuge 

[3] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

among  impossible  things.  Even  Fifth  Avenue 
itself  was  not  at  that  moment  very  real  to 
me ;  a  place  for  the  body  to  tire  in,  that  was 
all. 

I  had  noticed  somewhere  about  Forty-fourth 
Street,  at  a  good  height  from  the  ground,  a 
whirl  in  the  air  of  what  seemed  —  snow — ashes 
—  dead  leaves  ?  Not  snow,  I  thought,  and  too 
grey  for  snow  besides.  Not  ashes ;  and  what 
should  dead  leaves  do  there  ?  I  did  not  stop. 
By  the  cathedral  there  was  something  curious 
too.  It  seemed  as  if  large  grey  flakes  of  many 
shapes  and  sizes  were  being  blown  about  and 
caught  upon  the  crockets  of  the  spires.  My 
eyes  are  queer  tonight,  I  said.  Up  against 
the  great  door  there  seemed  to  be  a  shadowy 
drift  of  grey,  thick  and  fermenting.  Still  I  did 
not  cross  the  road.  I  looked  about  though  now 
for  these  strange  things,  and,  heavens  !  when  I 
looked  the  air  of  the  Avenue  was  full  of  them. 
They  were  much  larger  than  snowflakes  and 
some  were  of  the  queerest  shape.  One  saw 
them  best  when  they  blew  up  against  the  sky; 
though  by  peering  carefully,  I  could  find  them 

[4]' 


Souls   on   Fifth 

too,  grey  against  the  grey  walls,  well  above  my 
head.  From  every  corner  and  crevice  the 
gusty  wind  was  dislodging  them,  and  it  seemed 
as  if  they  clung  to  the  walls.  I  looked  on  the 
ground.  I  thought  I  saw  several  blowing 
past.  I  thought  I  saw  one  flat  and  still.  I 
went  up  to  put  my  foot  on  it.  No,  that  was 
only  a  little  facet  of  the  pavement  that  had  lost 
the  reflection  of  the  street  lights.  Then  I  turned 
to  go  back  to  inspect  the  cathedral  door. 

As  I  turned,  there,  quite  distinctly,  in  the 
corner  of  a  window-sill  within  my  reach  was  one 
small  grey  shape.  Against  the  red  stone  one 
couldn't  miss  it.  I  went  closer.  It  was  thicker 
than  I'd  fancied  and  might  have  been  almost 
transparent  but  that  it  was  covered,  patchily, 
with  a  sort  of  silvery  fur,  not  unlike  the  growth 
on  an  Edelweiss  flower.  Beneath  the  fur  it  was 
of  a  rather  mottled  dirty  grey.  There  were  odd 
markings  on  it  which  might  have  been  made 
by  hand.  It  was  just  about  as  wide  at  its 
widest  as  my  palm  and  as  long  as  a  glove 
would  be.  But  the  shape  of  the  shape  was  no 
shape  you  could  name,  it  looked  a  rag.     It  was 

[5] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

indeed  very  ugly,  more  like  than  anything  to  a 
dirty  little  bit  of  used  grey  flannel.  I  noticed 
that  the  thing  seemed  somehow  to  palpitate. 
That  was  queerest  of  all,  though  then  I  re- 
membered the  fermenting  mass  against  St. 
Patrick's  door.  After  a  moment  I  took  it 
gingerly  in  my  hand.  It  had  no  weight.  But 
by  this  time  I  was  so  surprised  that  I  think 
I  spoke  aloud.  "What  on  earth  is  it?"  I 
said. 

And  there  seemed  to  come  from  it  a  sound 
like  the  echo  of  a  scraped  violin,  shaping  into 
words  which  were : 

"I  am  the  soul  of  the  late  Mrs.  Henry  Brett 
van  Goylen  and  I'll  trouble  you  to  put  me 
down." 

Politely  and  in  some  alarm  I  put  her  down  and 
as  I  did  so  one  of  the  eddying  gusts  of  wind  blew 
the  shape  of  her  away.' 

Thus  then  I  began  my  search  for  souls.  I 
caught  no  more  that  night  for  the  dawn  came 
soon.  But  many  a  night  after  for  an  hour  or 
two  before  the  morning  broke  would  I  adven- 
ture up  the  Avenue  and  make  my  bag.     They 

[6] 


I 


Souls   on    Fifth 

were  easy  to  find  when  you  knew  how  to  look, 
and  after  a  time  easy  enough  to  catch.  I 
thought  first  of  buying  a  butterfly  net  for  the 
sport  but  policemen  would  have  noticed  that. 
As  it  was  I  had  to  mind  not  to  loiter  long. 

I  was  alone  in  New  York  and  knew  no  one 
though  ten  years  before,  visiting  it  with  m 
father,  a  man  of  some  fame,  I  had  known  every 
one  there  was  to  know.  But  now  I  had  only 
work  to  do  which  took  me  day  by  day  to  the 
library  at  Forty-second  Street.  "This  time 
then,"  I  had  said,  "I  will  know  nobody." 
It  needed  not  any  effort.  ',  But  now,  it  seemed, 
I  was  to  know  New  Yorkers  as  they  had  never 
been  known  before. 

For  a  long  time  it  was  absorbingly  interest- 
ing. There  were  nights  on  which  one  couldn't 
catch  a  soul.  It  depended  a  good  deal  on  the 
weather,  but  I  soon  found  out  the  quite  im- 
possible times.  When  the  night  was  still,  they 
hung  —  a  cubic  layer  of  them,  four  miles  long 
and  more  and  very  thick  —  a  hundred  feet  or 
so  high  in  the  air.  It  was  some  while  before  I 
could  discover  the  general  laws  of  their  being, 

[71 


Souls  on    Fifth 

but  I  gathered  for  one  thing  that,  normally, 
a  sort  of  double  river  of  souls  was  always  flow- 
ing up  and  down  Fifth  Avenue ;  not  side  by  side 
as  the  traffic  flows,  but  above  and  below ;  below,  of 
course,  to  come  up  and  above  to  go  down.  This 
was  the  general  law;  and,  in  spite  of  interruptions 
and  scatterings,  the  flow  never  ceased.  They 
are  supposed  to  be  quite  invisible  and  in  nothing 
like  daylight  have  I  ever  caught  a  glimpse  of 
one.  Heavy  rain  is  hard  on  them.  It  beats 
them  to  the  ground  in  a  sort  of  jellified  mass.  I 
went  out  one  pouring  night  to  discover  what  did 
happen  then.  For  a  long  time  I  could  see  noth- 
ing, the  wet  had  made  them  transparent  to  my 
eyes.  But  soon  I  found  that  I  was  actually 
treading  inches  deep  in  a  mess  of  souls.  While 
such  a  thing  can  give  them  no  actual  pain  yet 
the  indignity  of  it  was  great  and  I  felt  I  could 
not  stop  and  talk  to  any  of  them  that  night. 
Besides  they  were  all  mashed  up  one  with  the 
other,  like  jujubes  that  a  child  has  warmed  in 
its  pocket.  I  should  have  had  to  pick  them 
apart. 

A  blizzard  upsets  them  badly,  i  I  remember 

[8] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

a  soul  telling  me  that  once  for  a  long  time  she 
was  blown  and  blown  between  Forty-second  and 
Forty-fifth  Streets,  never  further  either  way. 
She'd  get  into  the  stream  flowing  down,  but 
every  time  at  Forty-second  Street,  a  gust 
would  whirl  her  up  and  round,  and  at  Forty- 
fifth  the  same  thing  happened  if  she'd  got  into 
the  stream  flowing  up.  She  said  it  went  on 
like  that  for  a  year.  She  probably  didn't  mean 
to  be  inaccurate,  (these  disembodied  beings 
quickly  lose  our  sense  of  time)  but  I've  no  doubt 
she  was  blown  about  so  for  some  days.  \  It  is 
the  light  eddying  wind  which  brings  them  down 
to  earth  or  near  it  and  scatters  them  into  corners 
singly  or  by  twos  and  threes.  That  was  the 
great  weather  for  soul-hunting  and  I  did  my 
best  never  to  miss  a  night  of  it. 

From  first  to  last  I  suppose  I  had  talks  with 
quite  five  hundred  souls.  But  they  were 
difficult  to  get  on  with;  that's  the  truth.  I 
had  thought  at  first  that  any  of  them  would  be 
thankful  for  a  terrestrial  chat.  Not  a  bit  of  it. 
In  the  first  place  they  took  no  interest  what- 
ever in  the  affairs  of  the  world.     They  knew 

[9] 


Souls   on   Fifth 

of  nothing  that  had  happened  in  it  since  their 
deaths  and,  as  a  rule,  they  cared  to  know  noth- 
ing. I  believe  that  not  more  than  a  dozen 
times  was  I  questioned.  A  woman  might  ask 
me  if  I  knew  her  widower,  but  it  was  purely  to 
make  conversation,  the  habit  of  small  talk  not 
having  died  with  her.  Three  men  at  various 
times  wanted  to  hear  about  the  last  Presiden- 
tial Election.  But  two  of  them  I  found  did 
not  in  the  least  know  how  long  they  had  been 
dead  ;  it  was  Bryan's  chances  against  McKinley 
they  were  fussed  about.  No  doubt  they  had 
been  keen  politicians  for  when  they  learned  that 
eighteen  years  had  passed  since  then  in  which 
many  most  serious  things  had  happened  to  the 
world,  they  at  once  lost  all  interest.  \ 

Usually  they  would  only  talk  about  them- 
selves. They  wouldn't  even  recognize  the  exist- 
ence of  other  souls.  They  were  not  more  ego- 
tistic than  they  had  been  in  the  material  world, 
but  now  there  was  no  false  shame  about  it, 
and  it  was  carried  to  extremes  for  which  even 
forty  years'  growing  contempt  for  the  human 
race  found  me  unprepared. 

[10] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

I  remember  for  instance  how  the  lady  who 
was  blown  wildly  for  what  seemed  to  her 
(poor  dear!)  a  year  between  Forty-fifth  and 
Forty-second  Streets,  would  keep  on  insisting 
that  such  a  thing  had  never  happened  to  any 
soul  before.  I  sympathized  with  her  for  the 
uncomfortable  time  she  had  had ;  but  no,  that 
wasn't  enough.  She  kept  at  it  till  I  bettered  her 
by  saying  that,  quite  obviously,  such  a  thing 
never  could  happen  to  any  soul  again.  Then 
she  was  satisfied.  \ 

There  were  exceptions.  There  was  the 
Reverend  Evan  Thomas.  It  was  from  him 
indeed  that  I  gathered  most  information  ;  by 
his  help  that  I  was  able  to  grasp  at  last  what 
really  was  happening  to  them  all  in  this  future 
life. 

I  found  the  soul  of  this  once  popular 
preacher  on  a  September  night  wedged  in  the 
shutters  of  a  candy  shop.  I  dug  him  out  and  he 
thanked  me.  He  was  about  seven  inches  long 
by  three  broad,  quite  straight  down  one  side, 
but  with  undular  indentations  upon  the  other; 
of  no  thickness  to  speak  of,  with  rather  a  rub- 

[II] 


Souls   on   Fifth 

bery  surface  and  in  colour  a  sort  of  blueish 
grey.     It  was  a  fine  night.     The  harsh  gust  of 
wind  that  had  wedged  him  in  the  shutter  had 
died  down  and  we  had  a  long  and  pleasant  chat. 
He  spoke  with  equal  ease  and   cheerfulness 
about  his  past  life  and  his  present  death.     Was 
this  state  of  things  the  Heaven  he  had  spent  so 
much  time  and  energy  preaching  about  ?     No, 
on  the  whole  he  didn't  think  it  was.     But  in 
that  case  had  his  soul  (I  had  to  put  this  deli- 
cately) and  the  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
other  souls  besides  that  we  knew  were  drifting 
up  and  down  —  had  they  taken,  so  to  speak,  the 
wrong  turning?     No,  he    didn't  exactly  think 
that  either.     I  must  remember,  of  course,  that 
he  had  not  been  dead  long.     I  must  also  re- 
member that  for  many  years  now  the  world,  or, 
at  any  rate,  that  part  of  it  that  lived  and  moved 
on  Fifth  Avenue,  had  taken  Heaven  so  much  for 
granted  that  it  had  become  the  vaguest  of  ideas 
to  them  and  had  entirely  ceased  to  believe  in 
Hell.     Now  people  cannot  possibly  go  to  places 
they  don't  understand  or  believe  in ;  that  stands 
to  reason.     And  he  quoted  me  a  line  from  the 

[12] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

Acts  about  the  man  who  died  and  went  to  his 
own  place.  That  had  furnished  him,  he  thought, 
with  a  solution  of  this  question. 

"When  I  first  died,"  he  told  me,  "and  found 
myself  floating  lightly  about  here,  I  will  own  that 
I  was  puzzled  and  even  —  though  I  had  and  still 
■  have  every  faith  in  God's  goodness  —  even  a 
little  disappointed.  It  was  true  that  in  the 
exercise  of  my  calling  I  had  refrained  from 
painting  any  very  definite  picture  of  the  state 
of  bliss  to  which  the  souls  of  the  righteous 
should  be  called.  My  own  congregation  was 
certainly  not  such  a  one  as  I  could  indulge  in 
any  highly  coloured  or  romantic  vision  of  that 
Future.  They  were  well  educated,  practical 
people.  Besides,  as  far  as  I  could  see,  the  use 
that  they  did  already  make  of  their  imagination 
was  very  questionable.  To  say  that  they  used 
it  merely  as  a  stimulus  to  erotic  frivolities 
would  perhaps  have  been  too  harsh,  though  I 
have  at  times  been  tempted  to  put  my  com- 
plaint in  so  many  words.  But  what  they  needed 
from  me  surely,  was  sobering,  commonplace 
morality.     Still,  let  me  confess    that   when   it 

[I3l 


Souls   on    Fifth 

actually  came  to  entering  upon  a  more  blessed 
existence,  I  had  in  my  secret  heart  looked  for- 
ward to  something  in  the  nature  of  a  pleasant 
little  surprise.     And  to  find  myself  drifting — " 

"Still  drifting,"  I  said,  rather  wickedly. 

He  was  not  to  be  checked  by  any  mere  witti- 
cism— "  Drifting,"  he  went  on,  "and  for  all  I 
know  drifting  for  an  eternity  up  and  down 
Fifth  Avenue  !  —  it  was  disappointing. 

"  But  I  reflected.  As  a  rational  Christian  I 
was  eager  to  assure  myself  of  God's  laws  and 
then  to  square  them,  if  possible,  with  the  exigen- 
cies of  any  world  in  which  it  might  please  Him 
to  place  me.  And  I  have  always  been  ready, 
nay,  anxious  to  search  out  my  own  faults  and  if 
necessary  to  repent  of  them.  So  in  the  course  of 
much  drifting  and  some  whirling,  often  round 
the  very  steeple  that  pointed  to  heaven  from 
above  the  pulpit  of  my  late  labours,  I  dis- 
interestedly reviewed  my  former  existence  and 
gathered  it  up,  so  to  say,  as  even  the  longest 
life  may  be  gathered,  into  a  dozen  sentences. 
See,  now,  if  they  do  not  give  you  the  key  to  this 
mystery. 

[I4l 


<( 


Souls   on   Fifth 

;I  remembered  my  call  from  a  sphere  of 
popular  eloquence  in  England  to  the  church 
that  —  well,  it  can  hardly  be  said  to  ornament 
Fifth  Avenue,  but  it  is  a  pleasant  comfortable 
church.  I  knew  nothing  of  America  at  that 
time.  But  I  had  heard  stories  of  the  luxury 
of  New  York  women  and  of  financial  corrup- 
tion among  the  men,  and  when  the  flattering 
offer  came  I  naturally  asked  myself  whether 
God  had  not  summoned  me  to  scarify,  though 
lovingly,  these  highly  placed  sinners,  to  bring 
them  to  repentance  and  a  more  humble  fol- 
lowing in  the  footsteps  of  their  Lord.  I  settled, 
if  possible,  to  turn  a  surplus  of  the  enormous 
stipend  they  were  to  give  me  into  a  trust  fund 
for  some  sensible  and  suitable  charity  — " 

I  looked.     We  were  opposite  the  very  church. 

"  Is  the  stipend  so  big  ? "  I  asked  and  nodded 
across. 

"When  it  came  to  the  point,"  he  said,  "I 
found  it  not  big  enough.  I  had  a  grown-up 
son  and  daughters.  They  had,  of  course,  to 
mix  on  terms  of  equality  with  my  congrega- 
tion.    We   had   to  keep  up   appearances ;    the 

[I5l 


Souls   on    Fifth 

lay  patrons  of  the  church  expected  it.     Still  we 
were  never  seriously  in  debt. 

"To  continue  — " 

"Please,"  I  begged  him.  I  was  enjoying  it. 
He  had  evidently  been  a  preacher  of  some 
style. 

"My  congregation  at  once  impressed  me  as 
being  made  up  of  charming  people,  kindly, 
clever  and  hospitable,  boundlessly  hospitable. 
We  spent  several  weeks,  my  wife  and  I,  or  my 
eldest  daughter  and  I,  night  after  night,  dining 
with  the  chief  families  among  them.  One 
should  always  accept  such  invitations,  one 
should  view  the  home-life  of  one's  flock.  And 
while  I  was  sampling  them,  sizing  them  up, 
determining  by  personal  and  unprejudiced 
observation  upon  which  most  prevalent  vice 
or  failing  the  sword  of  my  spiritual  condemna- 
tion should  first  fall,  I  merely  preached  week 
by  week,  not  to  be  rash,  not  to  be  unfair, 
sermons  upon  less  disputable  subjects,  sermons 
that  purposely  avoided  any  vital  thrusts  into 
that  body  politic  to  which  I  was  now  the  chosen 
minister. 

[16] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

"They  were  admirable  to  preach  to;  quick 
to  seize  on  a  point,  ever  ready  for  those  little 
sub-humorous  sallies  which  are  the  salt  of  a 
sermon,  the  delight  of  a  preacher  who  can 
discreetly  indulge  in  them.  One  could  not 
hold  their  attention  long,  it  is  true,  but  it  was 
keen  while  it  lasted.  They  liked  to  have  their 
intelligence  appealed  to,  they  welcomed  my 
references  to  the  very  latest  things  in  science 
and  literature.  \  I  projected  a  series  of  sermons, 
in  which  I  proposed  to  take  Sunday  by  Sunday 
the  works  of  some  famous  sceptical  philosopher 
and  endeavour  to  reconcile  them  with  the 
Christian  Ethic.  Such  a  course  would  not 
have  been  possible  in  England,  where,  I  will 
confess,  the  indifference  of  congregations  to 
my  very  extensive  modern  reading  and  the 
quotations  I  could  make  from  it  had  often 
nettled  me  exceedingly.  But  these  New 
Yorkers,  I  did  find,  to  use  a  vulgar  phrase, 
to  be  both  mentally  and  spiritually  a  thoroughly 
up-to-date  crowd. 

"Not,  mind  you,  that  I  had  weakened  in 
my  resolve  to  scarify  them,  when  need  were 

[17] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

and  opportunity  came,  for  their  deeper  sins. 
But  I  had  found  that  they  were  not  children, 
they  were  not  fools,  that  the  thing  needed 
doing  well,  and  from  the  point  of  view  of  a 
thorough  understanding  of  the  very  peculiar 
circumstances  under  which  fashionable  life 
must  be  lived  here,  otherwise  it  had  better  be 
left  alone  altogether.  That  thorough  under- 
standing I  set  myself  conscientiously  to  acquire. 

"But,  dear  me  !"  he  broke  off.  "My  twelve 
sentences  have  been  much  exceeded.  Old 
habits !  And  about  myself  —  it  is  inexcus- 
able." Again  I  begged  him  to  continue. 
Quite  cheerfully  he  did. 

"I  found  many  difficulties  in  my  way. 
Society  women  undoubtedly  did  indulge  in 
outrageous  luxury,  but  the  worst  offenders 
did  not  come  to  my  church,  and  to  berate  them 
in  their  absence  would  merely  have  given  un- 
deserved satisfaction  to  the  women  who  did 
come  and  were  themselves  by  no  means  inno- 
cent in  the  matter.  That  is  a  danger  in  preach- 
ing. Your  congregation  will  always  imagine  that 
you  are  —  as  one  says  —  getting  at  their  neigh- 

[18] 


Souls   on   Fifth 

bours  and  not  at  them.  I  did  make  a  most 
strenuous  effort,  though,  to  tackle  the  question 
of  financial  corruption.  I  worked  at  it  for  weeks. 
But  it  was  a  very  difficult  subject,  involving 
a  great  complication  of  figures  (at  which  in- 
deed I  was  never  good)  as  well  as  several  tricky 
points  of  difference  between  State  and  Federal 
law  which  it  really  needed  an  expert  to  solve. 
But  I  could  not,  above  all  things,  risk  exposing 
my  ignorance.  That  would  have  done  more 
harm  than  good.  The  habit  that  newspapers  in 
this  country  have  of  reporting  sermons  flatters, 
it  is  true,  but  also  intimidates.  In  the  end,  to 
my  lasting  regret,  I  felt  compelled  to  abandon 
the  idea.  \ 

"I  remember  I  made  one  attempt  to  deal 
with  the  simple  sin  of  over-eating,  of  which 
quite  70  per  cent,  of  my  congregation  were 
without  doubt  guilty.  I  hung  the  construc- 
tive part  of  the  sermon  upon  the  subject  of 
Food  Reform,  a  very  popular  one  just  then. 
But  the  destructive  part  had  to  be  too  deli- 
cately done  to  make  a  real  effect.  It  had  to 
be.     For  had  I  not  myself  fed  and  fed  well  at 

[19] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

most  of  their  tables  ?     And  in  the  flesh  I  was 
a  little  inclined  to  stoutness. 

"And  so  after  a  while  I  found  that  I  slipped 
into  preaching  to  my  congregation  only  such 
sermons  as  my  congregation  wanted  to  hear. 
What  else  was  to  be  done  ?  They  would  not 
otherwise  have  come  to  hear  me  at  all,  for 
there  is  no  law  to  make  them,  and  nowadays 
precious  little  public  opinion.  I  should  have 
lost  any  chance  at  all  of  doing  good.  ,  As  it 
was,  by  contriving  at  any  cost  to  be  interest- 
ing, my  church  was  kept  full,  and,  starting  os- 
tensibly from  strange  and  far-away  subjects, 
Wars  with  the  heathen,  Greek  Legends,  or  the 
latest  good  novel,  I  never  failed  I  think  in 
the  end  to  bring  my  hearers,  though  at  the  time 
they  might  hardly  be  conscious  of  it,  one  small 
step  nearer  to  Jesus.  It  is  true  that  a  really 
strong  man  in  my  place  might  have  done  better 
before  they  turned  him  out.  \  All  I  can  say  is 
that  I  did  the  best  that  was  in  me.  But  looking 
back  I  see  quite  clearly  now  what  happened. 
I  had  set  out  to  convert  Fifth  Avenue ;  it  was 
Fifth  Avenue  converted  me. 

[20] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

"And  that,  my  dear  sir,  is  why,  though  dis- 
embodied, I  am  still  here  and  why  we  are  all 
here ;  poor  souls.  In  our  lifetime,  this,  at  its 
best,  was  all  we  strove  towards,  and  in  our 
death  we  have  come  'to  our  own  place.'5 

He  ceased.  t  His  shape  had  all  the  time  been 
-  lying  comfortably  along  my  left  forearm.V  I 
looked  up  from  it  to  where,  in  the  air  above  me, 
the  river  of  souls  flowed  ceaselessly  on.  It  was 
a  still  night  now.  I  could  never  make  out  why, 
since  they  had  absolutely  no  personal  power 
of  volition,  some  always  got  along  faster  than 
others.  On  an  average  they  seemed  to  make 
about  three  miles  an  hour.  It  was  a  wonder- 
fully weary  sight. 

"Who  are  they,  generally  speaking  ?" 

"Well,"  said  the  preacher's  soul,  "it's  a 
most  curious  mixture.  There  are  the  tip-top 
people  who  used  to  belong  here  and  never 
thought  there  was  any  further  to  get.  And  then 
there  are  all  the  people  who  badly  wanted  to 
get  here  in  their  lifetimes  and  never  could." 

"I  take  it  that  the  two  sorts  don't  mix  well," 
I  said. 

[21] 


Souls   on    Fifth 


<c 


'There  again,"  he  went  on,  "it  doesn't 
work  out  as  you'd  expect.  We're  all  here  now 
because  we  belong  here  and  we  know  it.  There's 
no  escape ;  and,  as  we  can't  control  our  move- 
ments, we've  no  power  now  of  associating  with 
one  lot  of  souls  more  than  with  another.  The 
wind  bloweth  us  where  it  listeth.  So  the  con- 
sequence is  that  we  don't  worry  much  about 
our  behaviour :  and  the  people  who  are  rude  by 
nature  are  just  rude  to  everybody,  and  the 
snobs  are  snobbish  and  the  cads  caddish  and 
the  bullies  bully  and  the  gentle  folk  are  gentle 
without  any  respect  of  persons.  Nothing  else 
is  expected  of  us.     It  makes  a  simple  world  of 


it." 


"Is  there  no  escape,  do  you  say?"  I  asked 
him. 

"I  don't  see  how  there  can  be,"  he  said 
rather  plaintively.  "In  the  last  world  you 
could  —  what  is  called  —  'make  something'  of 
yourself.  You  could  choose  your  profession  and 
your  friends,  you  could  do  right  or  wrong.  You 
could  deny  your  Lord  or  act  up  to  your  faith." 

"Could  you  always?"  I  argued.     "  Circum- 

[22] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

stances  handicap  one  shockingly.  We  mean  to 
do  better  than  we  ever  can." 

"My  friend,"  said  he,  "your  faith  is  the 
thing  you  do  act  up  to.  That's  what  we 
have  discovered  here.  God  makes  no  excuses. 
The  pious  opinions  you  hold  have  no  more 
.  effect  on  the  soul  than  a  knowledge  of  the  mul- 
tiplication table." 

"But  don't  you  desire  to  escape  now  ?  How 
about  the  effect  of  that?"  I  pressed  him. 

For  a  little  he  did  not  answer;  I  waited 
patiently.  I  have  forgotten  to  remark  how 
soon  I  had  found  that  for  talking  to  a  soul  the 
human  voice  is  a  clumsy  and  unnecessary  instru- 
ment. /One  could  imagine  (I  did  at  first)  that 
the  shapes  emitted  queer  little  sounds,  but  I  can- 
not see  how  that  actually  could  be.  \  I  believe 
that  one  only  instinctively  clothed  the  impres- 
sions they  conveyed  direct  to  one's  mind  in  the 
tones  of  a  human  voice.  And  with  a  very  little 
practice  one  did  not  need  to  do  that  at  all. 
One  could  communicate  with  extraordinary 
swiftness  and  ease  by  imagination  alone,  talk 
soul  to  soul,  as  it  were.     It  is  a  simple  trick, 

[23] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

can  be  practised  between  human  beings  while 
on  earth  and  is  indeed  the  best  form  of  con- 
versation. 

After  the  moment  of  silence  the  soul  of  the 
reverend  gentleman  sighed. 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  cannot  honestly  say  that 
I   want   to  escape   for   I   cannot  muster  up   a 
belief    that    there    is     anything    much    else    to 
escape  to.     All  the  effort  I  was  capable  of  in 
that  direction  I  made  in  my  former  life.     And 
I  am  useful  here.     I  really  think  I  am.     Our 
Lord,  you    will   remember,    ministered    to    the 
spirits  in  prison.     Whenever  I  am  blown  against 
another  soul,   whenever  the  wind  gathers  two 
or  three  of  us  together,  I  take  up  the  tale  of 
salvation  as  I  used  to  do  on  earth.  \  Those,  if 
I  chance  to  hit  upon  them,  who  were  accustomed 
to  hear  me  in  that  church  opposite,  are  a  little 
bored  by  it  perhaps,  for  naturally  I  have  noth- 
ing new  to  say.     But  to  the  others,  to  those 
who  had  to  content  themselves  on  their  earthly 
pilgrimage  with  nothing  but  the  ideal  of  Fifth 
Avenue,  and  with  more  commonplace  spiritual 
ministrations  —  to   them,  I  do  think  that  the 

I'M  ] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

Word  of  Truth  as  I  am  inspired  to  speak  it  is 
a  comfort.  \  Though  of  course  it  cannot  now  get 
them  on  any  further,  yet  if  it  consoles  them  in 
their  present  station  —  well,  that  is  one  of  the 
main  functions  of  religion,  is  it  not? 'VI 

"But  to  endure  this  sort  of  thing  through  an 
.  eternity  !"  I  said. 

"My  dear  young  man,"  he  patronized  me, 
"Time  is  an  illusion.  \  I  remember  so  well 
making  this  point  in  one  of  my  most  char- 
acteristic discourses.X  Time  is  what  we  think  it, 
a  minute  of  agony  is  an  age,  a  year  of  happiness 
is  a  minute.  Doesn't  it  strike  you  that  an 
Eternity  of  boredom  may  perhaps  have  no 
extreme  meaning  to  those  who,  after  all,  have 
spent  most  of  their  time  in  being  bored  ?  You 
cannot  measure  emptiness.  And  Eternity  is 
only  the  emptiness  of  Time. 

"Hadn't  you  better  let  me  fly  now,"  he 
added,  "and  go  home?  It  will  be  daylight 
soon  and  from  what  you  tell  me  you  haven't 
been  to  bed  for  nights." 

I  took  his  soul  between  my  finger  and  thumb. 

"I  am  exceedingly  grateful  to  you,"  I  said. 

[25] 


Souls  on    Fifth 

"You  have  thrown  light  on  what  was  puzzling 
me  much.  Do  you  think  we  shall  meet  again  ?': 
"Only  by  pure  chance,"  he  answered.  "Un- 
less —  I  have  a  fancy,  which  I  have  not  yet 
been  able  to  prove,  that  if  there  is  a  true 
affinity  between  souls  they  will  come  together 
in  God's  good  time.  [I  had  an  acquaintance 
on  earth,  an  interesting  fellow,  who  built  up 
quite  an  elaborate  theory  of  soul-affinities. 
But  he  ended  by  walking  off  with  a  married 
woman,  which  was,  to  say  the  least,  a  most 
immoral  anticipation  of  God's  purposes.  I  Since 
I  entered  this  state,  I  must  own  that  I  have 
not  yet  —  and  it  is  strange — blown  up  against 
my  dear  wife,  who  predeceased  me  by  some  few 
years  ;  also  that  I  have  only  met  two  of  my  very 
intimate  friends.  My  wife  was,  I  am  sure, 
near  as  well  as  dear  to  me  on  earth,  but  then 
Fifth  Avenue  may  not  have  been  very  dear  to 
her.  Possibly  her  soul  is  somewhere  at  home 
in  England.  On  the  other  hand,  time  and  time 
again  I  find  myself  mixed  up  with  souls  here 
that  are  not  at  all  the  sort  I  should  have 
chosen  to  associate  with  before.     That  puzzles 

[26] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

me.  I  shall  be  interested  to  see  if  we  two  do 
run  across  each  other  much.     Good  night." 

I  flung  him  gently  into  the  air.  He  sailed 
quickly  out  of  my  sight,  for  the  flowing  river 
was  dim  now  almost  to  extinction.  I  doubted 
somehow  if  we  should  meet  again. 

This  had  been  illuminating.  I  saw  at  once 
where  by  sheer  tactlessness  I  had  failed  in  talk- 
ing to  the  souls.  I  had  assumed  that  they 
were  unhappy.  Not  a  bit  of  it.  They  had 
got  what  they  wanted.  Getting  that  one 
always  speaks  of  as  a  state  of  heaven  upon 
earth.  If  then,  the  final  and  eternal  Heaven 
turns  out  merely  to  be  a  little  more  of  what  we 
want,  what  sensible  man  should  turn  his  back 
on  it  for  that  ? 

Nor  could  the  souls  run,  of  course,  to  great 
variety  of  disposition.  Roughly,  as  the  parson 
said,  one  could  divide  them  into  two  classes,  the 
aboriginal  population  and  the  invaders.  The 
invaders  should  have  been  the  more  interesting 
to  talk  to  for  they  had  achieved  here  what  they 
could  only  long  for  in  life,  and,  one  might  think, 
were   therefore    actively    enjoying    themselves. 

[27] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

But  their  complaint  was  that  being  in  an 
enormous  majority  they  were  mostly  only 
blowing  up  against  each  other  all  the  time 
so  that  they  hardly  got  into  touch  with  the  true 
Fifth  Avenue  at  all.  i  It  was  of  course  a  great 
satisfaction  to  them  to  find  they  were  really 
there  at  last,  but  they  could  tell  me  nothing 
much  about  it.  And  about  the  places  they  had 
lived  in  on  earth  they  simply  would  not  speak 
of  them  at  all.  Still  much  could  be  guessed  at 
by  that. 

The  old  inhabitants,  the  aborigines,  were,  one 
gathered,  mostly  women  and  butlers ;  and  the 
butlers  who  had  been  sent  away  to  die,  were 
always  glad  to  be  back  in  their  element.  I 
looked  almost  in  vain  for  souls  of  the  mighty 
men  who  had  built  the  great  houses  and  lent 
them  their  fame.  I  believe  they  are  mostly 
to  be  found  down  at  Wall  Street  where  they  and 
the  bankrupts  and  gamblers  must  make  a  busy 
crowd.  I  was  indeed  assured  of  this  by  a  very 
ladylike  soul.  Business,  she  said,  had  been  the 
one  thing  lovely  and  pleasant  to  her  husband 
in  his  life,  and  in  his  death  she  most  sincerely 

[28] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

trusted  he  was  not  divided  from  it.  Here 
was,  by  the  way,  a  case  of  that  affinity  that  had 
so  interested  my  preacher  friend.  This  lady- 
like one  had  been  a  most  successful  hostess 
in  New  York,  a  model  of  charming  manners, 
a  great  authority  on  good  form ;  and  now  she 
-  was  always  being  blown  around  with  the  soul 
of  her  butler.     It  caused  quite  a  scandal. 

I  rather  wondered  that  so  many  of  these 
clever,  charming  women  should  be  left  drifting 
about.  I  think  that,  to  begin  with,  they  had 
wondered  at  it  too.  For  they  had  travelled  all 
over  the  world ;  there  was  nobody  they  did  not 
meet,  nothing  they  could  not  do  (given  the 
talent  and  understanding  which  one  supposes, 
of  course,  they  had).  They  were  not  used  either 
to  live  in  their  big  houses  for  more  than  a 
few  months  in  the  year.  But  perhaps,  despite 
the  wonders  of  the  world  they  saw,  and  the 
glories  of  men's  labour  they  glanced  at  and 
passed  by,  it  was  always  the  love  of  Fifth 
Avenue  which  was  at  the  core  of  their  hearts ; 
so  here  they  still  are. 

(I  did  meet  one  most  indignant  party.     He 
[29] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

took  me  (goodness  knows  why !)  for  a  parson 
and  attacked  me  straight  away. 

"Call  this  a  future  life!"  he  said.  "It's 
disgraceful.  You  clergy  ought  to  be  ashamed 
of  yourselves !  No,  never  mind  what  de- 
nomination you  belong  to.  You  were  all  in  a 
gang  together.  It  was  a  regular  religious 
Trust  and  you  know  it.  Well,  I  put  myself 
in  your  hands.  Sunday  after  Sunday  I  sat 
under  the  most  sensible  one  of  you  that  I 
could  find.  I  did  what  he  said  about  giving 
money  in  charity  and  keeping  well  out  of 
temptation.  I  believed  all  he  told  me ;  I 
squared  the  Bible  with  the  higher  criticism 
right  along.  I  lived  a  decent  life  and  I  died 
without  a  murmur  when  my  time  came.  And 
now  I'm  not  a  bit  better  off  than  I  was  before. 
What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?" 

"But  you  must  like  it,"  I  urged,  for  I  was 
sure  of  my  ground  by  this.  "You  couldn't 
be  here  at  all  unless  you  did  like  it,  you  know." 

"It  isn't  a  question  of  what  I  like,"  he  per- 
sisted. "I  didn't  do  things  on  earth  because 
I  liked  doing  them,  but  because  they  were  the 

[30] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

proper  things  to  do.  And  when  I  made  a 
firm  contract  I  kept  it.  You  chaps  made  a 
contract  with  me  about  a  future  state  of  bliss 
and  I  expect  you  to  deliver  the  goods." 

It  was  useless  arguing  with  him.  He  had 
all  sorts  of  minor  grievances.  He  wanted  the 
place  kept  more  select.  Not  that  he  disliked 
all  these  other  people,  but  he  just  thought  they 
hadn't  any  right  to  be  there.  He  wanted  to 
know  if  his  soul  couldn't  somehow  be  attached 
to  his  old  house  standing  somewhere  about 
Seventieth  Street,  which  his  widow  and 
daughters  still  lived  in.  It  would  mark  out 
a  position  for  him,  give  him  more  dignity,  he 
said.  He  even  thought  that  his  old  room 
might  be  set  apart  for  him  and  wouldn't  I 
call  on  his  widow  and  arrange  it  ?  But  it 
was  the  general  state  of  haphazardness  that 
he  most  objected  to. 

"It's  such  a  muddle,"  he  grumbled.  "I 
thought  of  forming  a  small  well-chosen  com- 
mittee to  deal  with  the  problem.  But  there's 
no  means  of  getting  one  together.  And  when 
I  am  blown  up  against  anyone  that  might  suit 

[31] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

I  find  them  absolutely  selfish.  Why  that 
wonderful  public  spirit  which  used  to  animate 
us  has  not  survived  I  cannot  think." 

"No,"  I  said,  "it  is  strange!" 

He  wanted  me  to  form  a  committee  on  earth, 
was  ready  to  subscribe,  in  reason,  to  its  ex- 
penses if  any  means  could  be  found  of  his 
doing  so.  He  was  sure  that  if  the  prominent 
citizens  of  New  York  could  be  brought  to 
understand  that  Heaven  was  so  near  to  them 
and  was  kept  in  such  a  condition  they  would 
see  to  its  improvement  at  once,  would  re- 
model it,  in  fact,  from  end  to  end.  He  spoke 
of  a  travelling  commission  to  visit  similar 
future  states  in  London,  Paris,  Berlin  and 
Buda-Pesth. 

"We  could  adopt  the  best  feature  of  each," 
he  said,  "and  I  am  sure  that  in  addition  our 
well-known  efficiency  and  powers  of  organiza- 
tion would  not  fail  us." 

He  was  quite  convinced  that  there  was 
nothing  either  in  the  world  or  out  of  it  which 
money  and  energy  could  not  accomplish.  I 
think  he  had  been  some  sort  of  a  business  man. 

[32] 


Souls   on   Fifth 

Then  there  was  the  soul  of  the  painter  that 
I  found  the  wind  beating  frantically  against  the 
Metropolitan  Museum.  I  asked  him  what  in 
heaven's  name  he  was  doing  there.  He  had 
been  the  forger,  it  turned  out,  of  one  of  the 
most  famous  Old  Masters  in  the  collection.  It 
.was  the  best  thing  he  had  ever  done.  If  he 
could  have  owned  to  it,  it  would  have  made 
his  fortune. 

I  said  I  thought  not,  that  what  we  wanted 
nowadays  were  new  masters  not  old.  But 
he  would  not  listen  to  me ;  he  was  an  academic 
soul.  He  had  brooded  on  the  wrong  done  him, 
on  this  theft  of  his  genius  that  this  snobbish 
flattery  by  the  present  of  the  past  had  com- 
mitted, until  his  heart  broke.  He  was  sure, 
he  said,  that  in  a  little  while  a  kind  wind  would 
blow  him  into  the  Museum  itself  and  up  against 
his  masterpiece  and  that  then  he  would  melt 
into  it  forever. 

I  have  not  said  how  strange  the  souls  were 
to  look  at.  Though  their  shapes  did  not  answer 
at  all  to  human  shapes,  yet  by  many  curious 
variations  they  seemed  to  indicate  character. 

[33] 


Souls   on   Fifth 

I  saw  one  once  nearly  five  foot  long  and  only  a 
few  inches  broad,  with  curious  markings  all 
down.  V  He  was  spiteful  when  I  spoke  to  him. 
I  don't  know  what  he  had  been.  Mostly, 
though,  they  were  irregular  ovals  and  oblongs 
about  eight  inches  by  three.  There  were 
rhomboids  too  and  I  saw  several  squares. 
At  least,  they  looked  quite  square  till  you  came 
to  measure  them  up.  There  were  some  very 
tiny  souls,  some  not  larger  than  a  dime;  and 
there  were  some  just  scraps  of  rag,  torn  almost 
to  bits ;  you  wondered  how  they  held  together. 
But  it  was  the  markings  on  them  that  were 
most  curious.  It  was  by  these,  even  when 
they'd  speak  least  about  themselves,  that  I 
could  often  tell  what  they  once  had  been.  For 
as  the  thing  you  are  in  this  world  stamps 
itself  in  time  upon  your  face,  so  will  the  things 
you  do  stamp  themselves  forever  on  your 
soul.  Nearly  all  of  them,  for  instance,  had 
touches  of  rather  tarnished  gilt.  One  large 
and  wobbly  soul  you  might  almost  have  mis- 
taken for  a  torn  bit  of  Russian  embroidery, 
and  one  was  covered  with  fine  flowing  lines 

[34] 


Souls  on    Fifth 

like  a  Helleu  etching.  Some  were  warty ;  I 
never  could  bring  myself  to  touch  them. 
Many  had  holes  in  them  and  some  were  thick 
like  little  mattresses  and  plain  dark  grey. 
And  when  I  had  begun  to  learn  the  language 
of  the  signs,  I  found  there  were  things  marked 
upon  some  souls  of  which  I  cannot  speak. 
They  did  not  know  that  the  evil  thing  was 
plain.  They  would  talk  to  me  as  pleasantly 
and  carelessly  as  you  please.  But  while  I 
listened  to  what  they  said  I  looked  at  what  they 
were.  There  were  the  jagged  lines  that  told  of 
secret  cruelties,  stained  blood-red  into  the  souls 
of  the  torturers,  whose  homes  had  been  but 
dungeons  of  despair  for  weaker  souls  than  they. 
There  were  the  white  disease  spots  of  the 
coward ;  mildew  spots  that  rot  away,  in  time, 
the  very  substance  of  the  soul.  There  were  the 
blisters  of  slanderous  thoughts,  which  thicken 
and  coarsen  till  the  soul,  a  horny  mass,  is  not 
sensitive  to  truth  and  love  and  beauty  any 
more.  No,  there  is  no  hell  for  such  spirits. 
Is  there  any  need  for  one  ? 

Some    souls,    I    saw,    too,    scored   with    the 

[35] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

marks  of  undeserved  old  suffering  and  loss. 
These  would  sometimes  look  like  well-healed 
wounds,  but  with  the  women  often  they  were  only 
painted  and  powdered  down  and  I  could  see  that 
still  they  festered  a  little  and  were  diseased. 

It  was  in  the  very  depth  of  winter  that  I 
first  found  the  Little  Soul.  The  snow  was 
thick  and  crisp,  the  night  dark,  and  the  air 
still.  Mostly  the  rest  must  have  been  buried 
deep  ;  for  nothing  beats  them  down  like  snow, 
and  they  have  to  wait  for  its  thawing.  But 
she  had  been  lucky  and  she  hung  to  the  branch 
of  a  tree  that  bordered  the  park,  for  all  the 
world  like  a  queer  little  grey  icicle.  I  broke 
her  off,  carefully,  for  she  was  frozen  very  stiff. 
She  would  not  say  much  to  me  that  time.  She 
told  me  afterwards  that  she  had  been  shy.  But 
I  was  quite  used  to  that  sort  of  thing  though 
indeed  I  had  done  her  a  kindness  in  taking  her 
from  the  branch  and,  when  she  had  thawed  a 
little  on  my  hand,  letting  her  float  up  into  the 
calm  air.  I  remember  noticing  chiefly  that 
she  was  very  small  (she  did  not  overlap  my 
palm  as  she  lay  on  it),  of  a  pretty  oval  shape, 

[36] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

and  light  grey  in  colour;  she  had  a  slight  silver 
down  on  her,  shaded  here  and  there. 

Not  more  than  two  days  later  I  found  her 
again,  at  the  extreme  end  of  my  beat  this 
time,  beyond  the  Reservoir.  We  talked  for 
a  while.  She  did  not  want  to  talk  of  herself, 
-but  asked  much  about  me.  This  was  the  first 
time  such  a  thing  had  happened  with  any 
soul.  I  told  her  that  the  end  of  my  work  was 
in  sight  and  how  I  counted  on  leaving  New 
York  in  a  very  few  weeks  for  ever.  Didn't 
I  like  it,  she  asked.  I  told  her  that  I  hated  it, 
that  I  did  not  know  whether  I  hated  it  more 
when  I  mixed  in  daytime  with  the  people  who 
thought  they  were  alive  or  at  nighttime  with 
the  people  who  knew  they  were  dead.  She 
said  I  was  unfair,  that  it  was  a  great  city  and 
she  was  sure  there  were  still  very  charming 
people  in  it. 

"That's  it;  it's  not  my  business  to  be  fair,"  ' 
I   said.    "New   York  is    too  big    and    I'm  too 
small.     But  I  can  love  it  or  hate  it  if  I  like." 

She  asked  why  I  really  hated  it.     I  told  her. 
It  was  a  sufficiently  good  reason. 

[371 


Souls   on    Fifth 

She  answered  more  readily  now  when  I 
questioned  her  about  herself.  She  had  died 
young,  at  thirty-five  or  so ;  a  bungled  operation 
which  the  surgeons  could  not  own  to.  She  had 
been  married  to  a  quite  well-known  man, 
whose  name  I  had  seen,  curiously  enough, 
only  a  day  before  in  the  papers  set  to  an  an- 
nouncement that  he  was  marrying  again.  I 
was  not  sure  whether  to  tell  her  this ;  then  I 
did.  She  said  she  was  very  glad  and  asked  the 
name   of   the   woman.     I    couldn't   remember. 

"Not  that  it  matters,"  she  said.  "If  she's 
a  reasonable  sort  of  woman  they  should  be 
quite  sufficiently  happy." 

"That  is  about  the  height  of  one's  ambition," 
I  said,  "in  making  a  second  marriage." 

After  a  pause  she  added,  "I  was  quite  happy 
at  least;   I  should  have  been  foolish  not  to  be." 

"Did  you  leave  any  children?"  I  asked  her. 
"Stepmothers  are  much  whiter  than  they  are 
painted,  you  know." 

"No,"  she  said.  "I  had  three  in  the  first 
five  years  of  my  marriage.  But  one  died 
after   two   months   and   two  were   born   dead. 

[38] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

Then  the  doctor  said  I  wasn't  strong  enough 
and  forbade  me  to  have  any  more.  He  couldn't 
make  out  why  I  wasn't,  he  had  tried  all  the 
tonics  he  could  think  of.     But  I  knew." 

I  waited  for  her  to  go  on. 

"It  wasn't  that  I  didn't  love  my  husband  or 
that  he  didn't  love  me.  I  think  he  did  and  he 
was  always  very  kind.  Though,  indeed,  people 
say  that  need  not  stop  your  having  children  ; 
but  I  should  think  it  would,  shouldn't  you  ?" 

"Nature  is  not  quite  so  nice,"  I  answered. 

She  paused  again.  Then,  unexpectedly  — 
"When  were  you  in  the  country  last?"  she 
asked. 

I  told  her  that  a  few  weeks  before  I  had  gone 
for  a  walk  on  Long  Island,  how  grey  it  had  all 
looked  and  dead. 

"But  in  a  week  or  two,"  she  said,  "the  woods 
will  be  wonderful.  The  green  of  the  trees 
will  almost  pain  you  with  joy,  it'll  be  so  sharp 
and  bright.  And  there'll  be  dogwood  that 
promises  a  happy  year. 

"  I  was  born  when  the  dogwood  was  in 
blossom,"  she  said.     "When  I  was  little  it  was 

[391 


Souls   on    Fifth 

my  birthday  flower.  On  that  morning  mother 
always  had  them  make  an  arbour  of  it  for  me. 
And  after  breakfast  I'd  be  put  there  to  sit  in 
state  and  my  presents  would  be  brought  to  me. 
And  when  I  died  I  know  they  put  dogwood 
about  my  body  and  in  my  grave ;  that  was  in 
the  springtime  too.  They  thought  it  a  pretty 
thing  to  do,  but  what  did  it  matter  then  ?  Why, 
what  had  it  ever  mattered  ?  What  had  that 
life  and  the  beauty  of  it  ever  been  to  me  from 
the  beginning  ?  Something  I  was  taught  to 
play  with." 

By  now  the  barriers  of  my  earthly  state  were 
down  and  she  spoke  on  quite  simply  to  my  soul. 

"But  for  all  that  I  don't  belong  here,  you 
know,"  she  said,  "drifting  about  above  Fifth 
Avenue,  and  it's  very  dreadful.  I  never  did 
belong  here  when  I  was  alive,  however  happy 
I  managed  to  be." 

"Where  did  you  belong?"  I  asked. 

"In  the  wild  places,"  she  answered. 

"Then  why  didn't  you  go  to  them  ?"  I  spoke 
crossly.  I  have  no  patience  with  people  who 
talk  helplessly. 

[4o] 


Souls   on    Fifth 


<c 


'Well,  you  see,"  she  said,  "my  father 
was  well  off,  and  I  was  sent  to  school  and 
brought  out  into  society  and  married  to  the 
right  sort  of  man.  It  was  all  done  for  my 
happiness.  But  always  when  my  front  door 
closed  on  me  it  was  like  the  door  of  a  cage  clos- 
ing. I  was  out  of  doors  whenever  I  could  be. 
I  had  a  garden  — " 

"You  had  vegetables  for  dinner,  I  don't 
doubt,"  I  interrupted. 

"What  would  you  have  done  then,  had  you 
been  me?"  she  asked. 

"Done  what  I  wanted  to,"  I  told  her. 

"  But  when  you  can't  want ! "  she  said. 

"Ah,"  said  I,  "there's  no  remedy  for 
that." 

"  You  see,"  she  went  on,  "  I  was  taught  life 
like  a  lesson.  I  learnt  it  and  I  was  repeating 
it,  and  then  death  came,  and  now  it  seems  that 
I  never  even  started  to  live.  But  is  that  why 
I'm  never  going  to  die  ?  Because  that's  so 
dreadful." 

This  was  new  to  me.  "What  more  of  that 
do  you  want  to  do?"  I  asked  her. 

[41] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

She  cried  out.  "Oh,  don't  you  understand? 
In  Nature  everything  is  so  glad  and  proud  to 
die  —  really  and  truly  to  die.  To  flower  and 
fruit,  to  serve  its  turn,  give  what  it  is  and  has, 
then  perish  and  be  forgotten,  not  to  cumber 
the  memory  of  the  earth  at  all.  That's  the 
true  happiness,  the  only  glory,  to  spend  one- 
self utterly  and  die. 

I  always  hated  having  a  soul,"  she  said, 
it  made  one  so  careful  and  egotistical.  My 
flowers  had  no  souls  and  while  they  lasted  they 
were  always  fresher  and  finer  than  ever  I 
was.  My  dog  didn't  have  a  soul  to  start 
with.  He  was  a  dear  beast,  quite  undignified 
and  foolish.  Then,  being  so  much  in  the  house 
with  us  and  what  with  the  maids  petting  him,  he 
began  to  grow  a  sort  of  imitation  soul  and  be- 
came self-conscious  and  appealing.  I  sent  him 
to  the  stables,  I  was  so  cross,  and  told  them  to 
train  him  after  rats." 

She  laughed. 

"You  mean,"  I  said,  "that  you  never  have 
wanted  an  immortal  soul.  Yes.  I  understand 
that." 

[42] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

"What's  the  use  of  one?"  she  cried. 
"What's  the  use  of  all  these  silly  shapes  flap- 
ping around  here  ?  What  good  are  they  to 
themselves  or  anything  else?" 

"But  what  should  happen  to  them?"  I 
asked.  "God  never  destroys  anything  utterly, 
you  know.     It's  against  the  rules." 

"I  know  what  does  happen,"  she  said  slowly, 
"to  all  the  true  lovers  and  workers  who  have 
given  their  strength  without  stint  or  question, 
without  bargain  or  hope  of  reward,  to  the  ser- 
vice that  they  saw.  Their  work  is  their  im- 
mortality and  the  salvation  of  those  they  worked 
for  and  loved.}  For  themselves  they  have 
earned  oblivion.  And  if,  their  bodies  dead,  the 
fire  of  faith  by  which  they  burned  like  beacons 
in  the  dark  does  not  at  once  die  too,  it  falls  in 
little  flames  of  inspiration  upon  the  hearts  of 
all  the  comrades  that  could  understand."  I 

"That's  a  fine  enough  belief,"  I  said,  "and 
you  put  it  so  finely  that  I  really  can't  make  out 
what  you  are  doing  here  at  all." 

"Nor  can  I,"  she  replied,  "and  it's  very 
dreadful,  isn't  it?" 

[43] 


Souls   on   Fifth 

"Ah  but  I  can,"  I  added,  and  I  told  her  coldly 
and  hardly,  as  it  had  been  truly  told  to  me  — 
"It  is  the  things  you  do  that  count,  not  all 
the  pretty  beliefs  and  hopes,  with  which  you 
decorate  your  heart  and  mind.  The  inexorable 
laws  that  God  has  made  take  no  account  of  what 
you'd  like  to  be  and  wish  you  were.  How  can 
they  ?  What  are  you  that  you  should  com- 
plicate the  scheme  of  things  with  Ifs  and  Ans  ? 
There's  your  life.  Live  it  as  you  choose,  and 
take  the  consequences." 

She  was  dreadfully  silent. 

"But  I  didn't  choose,"  she  said.  "And  it's 
all  very  well  for  you  !  You  haven't  got  to  drift 
up  and  down  this  horrible  Avenue  for  ever  and 
ever  and  no  amen.  If  I'd  only  known  I'd  have 
been  wicked,  so  I  would." 

"Why  wicked?"     I  was  impatient. 

"Yes,  that's  the  silly  thing,"  she  said. 
"When  you're  so  well  brought  up  and  well 
looked  after  you  can't  be  yourself  at  all  with- 
out being  wicked." 

I  wondered  how  wicked  she  would  have 
managed  to  be.     And  she  caught  me  wondering 

[44] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

before  I  was  aware.  We  were  slipping  into 
sympathy,  it  seemed. 

"Well,"  she  exclaimed,  "I  was  very  pretty, 
I  tell  you  I  was." 

I  laughed.  It's  a  paradox  I  always  laugh  at 
rather  grimly.  How  can  wickedness  and  the 
beauty  of  women  go  together  ?  Oh,  blindness 
of  the  morality  of  man  !  Then  she  went  on  to 
speak  of  other  things. 

When  I  wished  her  good-night  she  said  :  — ■ 
"You'll  go  back  to  those  woods  when  it's 
springtime  and  the  sun  is  shining  through 
them,  won't  you  ?  Go  there  in  the  early  morn- 
ing and  sit  silent  and  when  the  little  live  things 
around  you  begin  to  talk,  think  of  me." 

"I  will,"  I  said. 

"For  that  was  how  my  soul  was  meant  to 
live  and  die,  I'm  sure,"  she  said.  "And  it  has 
never  been  itself  since  the  Dogwood  days." 

For  a  week  or  more  after  this  I  did  not  see 
her.  To  say  truth  I  did  not  altogether  want 
to.  I  walked  up  the  Avenue  once  or  twice 
but  I  took  care  to  keep  her  out  of  my  mind 
and  so,  as  I  had  begun  to  learn,  kept  her  away 

[45] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

from  me.  For  she  had  impressed  me  rather. 
Not  favourably;  for  all  her  fine  thoughts  her 
chatter  about  wickedness  showed  her  to  have 
been  a  frivolous  little  fool.  But  after  the 
struggles  and  temptations  of  some  years  I  had 
succeeded  in  detaching  myself  from  all  in- 
terest whatsoever  in  my  fellow  creatures  and  I 
did  not  choose  to  be  impressed,  even  unfavour- 
ably, by  anybody.  The  third  time  I  went  out, 
though,  I  was  making  such  conscious  efforts 
not  to  think  of  her  that  I  only  produced  the 
very  opposite  effect  and  there  she  hung  in  the 
air  a  foot  before  my  nose. 

She  was  genuinely  glad  to  find  me. 

"I  began  to  fear  we  weren't  in  sympathy 
at  all,"  she  said,  "as  you  didn't  turn  up  again. 
By  the  way,  are  you  a  man  ?" 

"Yes,  of  course,"  I  told  her.  Somehow  I 
had  assumed  she  knew. 

"I  couldn't  be  quite  sure,  you  see,"  she 
said,  "only  talking  to  you  soul  to  soul.  For 
once  we  lose  our  bodies  there  are  so  many 
gradations  from  malest-man  to  femalest-woman 
that  you  can't  always  draw  a  definite  line ;  and 

[46] 


Souls    on    Fifth 

sex  in  the  old  earthly  sense  doesn't  seem  to 
count.     It's  rather  a  blessing." 

"Well,  I  am  a  man,"  I  told  her  decidedly. 

"I  did  put  you  down  as  one,"  she  went  on, 
"because  you  were  so  priggish  the  other  night 
when  I  spoke  of  committing  sin." 
.    I  denied  being  priggish. 

"Oh,  but  you  were  feeling  priggish,"  she 
insisted,  "no  matter  what  you  said." 

I  told  her  she  had  no  right  to  pry  into  my 
feelings. 

"Nonsense,"  she  cried,  "you've  the  ad- 
vantage of  your  body,  you  can  run  away  when 
you  like,  leave  me  all  the  good  I  get  from  being 
a  naked  soul.  I  need  never  listen  to  lies 
again,  not  even  little  ones." 

"Well,  I  do  think  that  your  notion  of  com- 
mitting sin  by  running  off  with  some  man  or 
other,  or,  worse,  by  not  running  off  with  him, 
was  excessively  trivial  and  vulgar.  Besides,  it 
wouldn't  have  kept  you  from  being  here.  On 
the  contrary." 

I  know  that  she  smiled  a  little  sadly. 

"There  it  is,"  she  said. 

[47  1 


Souls   on    Fifth 


<( 


We  don't  want  to  go  tumbling  out  of  one 
man's  arms  into  another's.  Maybe  you  only 
encourage  us  to  do  it  by  calling  it  Sin.  For 
what  we  do  want  is  somehow  to  escape  the 
terrible  consequences  of  being  good." 

Then  she  moaned  a  little,  sorry  for  herself. 

"And  I  must,  I  must  escape  from  this  awful 
immortality,"  she  said.  "  Isn't  there  any  way 
it  can  be  done  ?" 

"Perhaps,"  I  suggested,  "if  you  could  fix 
firmly  in  you  a  desire  for  something  different 
it  might  be  granted." 

"No,  we  can  achieve  no  new  desires  here,"  she 
said.  "Isn't  it  dreadful?"  That  was  a  con- 
stant phrase  of  hers. 

"Can't  you  call  up  the  memory  of  an  old 
one  ?  "  I  asked.  "There  must  have  been  some- 
thing other  than  Fifth  Avenue  in  your  inner 
life." 

"Now  I'll  tell  you,"  she  said.  "I've  tried 
that.  I  used  to  plan  that  when  my  husband  got 
free  of  business,  if  he  ever  did,  we'd  take  an 
old  castle  in  Italy  or  on  the  Rhine  and  live  there 
at  least  six  months  in  the  year.     I  fixed  that 

[48] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

idea  well  in  him.  He'll  want  to  do  it  with 
his  other  wife  now  and  I  daresay  she  won't 
like  it  a  bit.  I  wish  you  hadn't  forgotten  her 
name.  Well,  I  thought  to  myself  when  I'd 
been  dead  a  while  :  Half  an  eternity  in  any 
place  in  Europe  is  better  than  spending  the 
whole  of  it  here.  So  I  set  my  desire  hard  on 
some  old  castle,  just  as  I  used  to  in  life  to  make 
my  husband  promise  he'd  buy  one.  And  one 
night  I  thought  I'd  got  to  it  and  I  was  so  glad,1' 
There  were  the  battlements  and  the  rocks  and 
the  moonlit  lake  below.  But  it  turned  out  only 
to  be  that  sham  place  that's  really  the  water- 
works in  Central  Park.  So  after  that  I  gave 
up  trying." 

We  stayed  some  time  in  silence.  She  had 
nothing  else  to  say.  I  had  no  more  suggestions. 
But  we  found,  I  suppose,  some  satisfaction  in 
staying  so.  I  was  wearing  a  thick  coat  and 
leaning  on  the  park  wall;  her  soul  was  on  my 
shoulder.  Suddenly  I  said,  "Good  night.  It's 
nearly  dawn.     I  must  be  going." 

'You  said  you  might  be  leaving  New  York 
soon,"  she  ventured. 

[49] 


Souls   on   Fifth 


<(- 


:Yes,"  said  I.     "And,  quite  unexpectedly, 
I'm  through  my  work.     I  get  off  the  day  after 


tomorrow." 


"Oh,"  she  said,  "good  night,"  and  never 
another  word. 

The  next  night  I  went  out  to  say  good-bye. 
I  thought  it  would  be  only  civil.  I  made  no 
doubt  we  should  find  each  other  along  that 
first  half  mile  of  park  wall,  that  she'd  descend 
upon  me  as  she  had  done  before.  She  wasn't 
there.  I  paced  up  and  down,  searching  most 
carefully;  my  eyes  were  experts  now.  I  spent 
the  whole  night  searching.  It  was  broad  day 
when  I  stopped.  I  stood  in  the  morning  light 
with  my  face  in  my  hands,  fixing  my  thoughts 
in  a  final  effort  firmly  on  her.  I  hoped  that, 
though  I  could  not  see,  I  should  feel  her  presence 
near  me  if  she  came.     Quite  in  vain. 

I  could  not  make  up  my  mind  to  leave  New 
York  without  seeing  her.  It  sounds  absurd, 
for  what  was  she  to  me  ?  What  was  she  any- 
how but  a  disembodied  soul,  one  of  thousands 
and  thousands,  and  all  past  praying  for,  spite 
of  anything  the  good  Catholics  may  say.     What 

[SO] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

could  there  ever  be  between  us  ?  My  desires 
had  certainly  never  been  set  on  New  York. 
Wherever  I  might  find  myself  when  I  died  it 
would  certainly  not  be  here.  But  I  felt  I 
could  not  go  without  seeing  her. 

For  seven  nights  I  searched  from  dark  till 
daybreak,  standing,  willing  her  to  come,  pacing 
wildly,  silently  calling.  I  remembered  then 
that  I  didn't  even  know  her  name.  I  slept 
exhaustedly  all  day. 

On  the  seventh  night  the  wind  was  rough.  I 
was  at  the  corner  of  Sixty-ninth  Street  when  a 
gust  blew  her  right  in  my  face.  I  caught  her 
and  held  her  with  the  roughest  grasp. 

"Where  on  earth  have  you  been,"  I  said, 
"and  what  have  you  been  doing?" 

"I've  been  quite  close  to  you  lots  of  times," 
she  said.  "I  can't  make  out  why  you  didn't 
see  me." 

"Now  don't  you  think  that  because  I  have 
a  body  I  can  be  lied  to  either,"  I  stormed  at  her, 
"you've  been  wishing  yourself  out  of  the  way 
on  purpose." 

"Yes,  I  have,"  she  said. 

[5i] 


Souls   on    Fifth 


a  ■ 


;Why?"  I  asked  her. 

She  did  not  answer. 

"Will  you  tell  me  why?"  I  demanded. 

"No,  I  won't,"  she  said,  "but  if  there's 
anything  in  it  at  all  you  ought  to  be  able  to 
tell  without  my  telling." 

"Well,  I  can't,"  I  snapped. 

"I  knew  you  wouldn't,"  she  said,  "so  what's 
the  good  anyway  ?" 

"You  really  are  a  most  irritating  little  soul," 
I  said.  "Will  you  tell  me  what  it  is  you  want 
of  me?" 

Not,  poor  dear,  that  she  had  shown  she 
wanted  anything.     She  made  no  answer. 

"Will  you  please  tell  me  what  it  is  you  want 
of  me  ?"  I  repeated. 

Still  no  answer. 

"Then  I  shall  wait  here  night  and  day  until 
you  do."  I  did  not  mean  to  be  bullied.  I  had 
made  up  my  mind  to  that. 

A  long  silence. 

Then  suddenly  —  "I  want  to  escape,"  she 
said.  "I  thought  I  was  settling  down  to  it, 
but   talking   to   you   has   brought   back  Time 

[52] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

again,  and  now  when  you  go  I  shall  want  to 
escape  worse  than  ever.  I  shall  want  to  die 
and  I  shan't  be  able  to.     Won't  it  be  dreadful  ?" 

Her  silly  little  phrase. 

"But  I  really  don't  see  what  I  can  do  to 
help  you,"  I  said.  "  If  you  can  think  of  anything 
by  all  means  tell  me.     I'll  certainly  try  it." 

"Where  do  you  go  to  when  you  go?"  she 
asked.    _ 

"I  go  West  across  the  prairies  and  the 
mountains,"  I  said,  "and  then  Southwest 
across  the  sea." 

"I  knew  that  really,"  she  confessed,  "it  has 
been  in  your  mind  all  the  time.  I've  been 
jealous  of  your  having  it  so  much  in  your 
mind." 

"Well,  go  on,"  I  told  her,  sharply,  as  my 
way  was. 

"I  thought,"  she  spoke  slowly,  "that  if  you 
could  like  me  well  enough  to  be  able  to  carry 
me  with  you  part  of  the  way,  then  why  shouldn't 
you  leave  me  on  the  prairie  as  you  passed  ? 
And  there,  if  I  fixed  my  desire  on  nothing- 
ness, the  great  wind  might  carry  me  to  such 

[53] 


C< 


Souls   on   Fifth 

a  lonely  place  that  I'd  be  almost  as  good  as 
dead  —  really  dead." 

"We  might  try  it,"  I  said.  "But  you  would 
have  to  like  me  enough  to  stop  yourself  flying 
back  here." 

"But  how  can  I  like  you,"   she  protested, 

unless  you  like  me  first  ? " 

Like  you  in  any  ordinary  sense  of  the  word 
I  certainly  do  not,"  I  said.  "I  am  a  practical 
man.  I  have  no  use  for  these  fantastic  exer- 
cises of  imagination.  How  do  you  expect  me 
to  like  you  ?" 

She  sobbed  aloud. 

"That's  because  I've  lost  my  body,"  she 
cried.  "If  I  had  my  body  back  I'd  make  you 
like  me  fast  enough —    oh  dear;    oh,  dear!" 

I  did  my  best  to  soothe  her.  M 

"And  now  I  daresay  I'm  not  even  a  decent- 
looking  soul,"  she  wailed. 

I  assured  her  she  was  a  charming-looking 
soul. 

"What  shape  am  I  ?"  she  asked. 

I  assured  her  she  was  a  perfect  oval,  and  her 
colour  a  most  delicate  pale  grey. 

[54l 


Souls   on    Fifth 

"It  sounds  very  dull,"  she  said.  "I've 
never  dared  ask  anyone  to  tell  me  before.  But 
compared  with  the  others  I  suppose  it's  not 
so  bad." 

"But  if  I  do  try  to  take  you,  how  am  I  to 
take  you?"  I  asked  her.  "I  can't  carry  you 
in  my  hand  for  two  whole  days.  Besides  in  the 
daylight  I'd  lose  you." 

"Oh,  but  I've  thought  of  that,"  she  said. 
"What  you  want  is  a  match-box  to  fold  me  up 
and  put  me  in.  No,  not  a  real  match-box, 
silly.  But  one  of  the  —  what  used  the  spir- 
itualists to  call  it  ?  —  one  of  the  astral  sort." 

"And  where  does  one  buy  those?"  I 
asked. 

I  was  sure  she  was  smiling  queerly. 

"Have  you  never  been  in  love  with  a  pretty 
foolish  woman?"  she  said. 

"With  dozens,"  I  answered.  I  always  say 
that;  it  is  safer.  But  the  fact  is  that  I  have 
never  been  in  love  at  all. 

She  must  have  known  both  of  the  silly  lie 
and  the  more  shameful  truth.  But  she  did 
not  remark  on  them.     Instead  — 

[55] 


Souls    on    Fifth 

"Think  of  your  love  for  a  woman  like  that," 
she  said,  "and  you'll  find  it  very  like  a  sort  of 
match-box  to  carry  me  about  in." 

I  never  sleep  in  the  train,  so  all  night  I  sat 
upright  in  the  darkened  car.  I  had  taken  the 
Little  Soul  from  my  pocket  and  I  held  her 
against  my  cheek ;  and  through  the  noise  of  the 
shaking  of  the  train  all  night  she  whispered  in 
my  ear.  She  was  sure  she  was  going  to  die  quite 
thoroughly  now,  she  said,  and  did  I  mind  her 
telling  me  things  she  had  never  told  anyone 
before.  "Why  should  I?"  I  answered  her 
coldly.  I  was  leaving  the  country ;  she  could 
be  certain  they  would  go  no  further. 

They  were  but  simple  things  she  had  to  tell. 
Of  dreams,  first  for  herself,  then  for  her  dead 
children,  of  little  verses  she  had  written  and 
hidden  and  destroyed,  of  a  temptation  to 
unlawful  love  that  she  had  shunned.  Foolish 
things,  I  thought.  And  I  stuck  to  the  thought, 
though  I  knew  she  knew  I  was  thinking  it. 

The  next  night  I  stood  on  the  wide  prairie  and 
held  her  soul  in  my  hand.  It  was  late,  for  I 
had  walked  as  far  from  the  town  as  I  could. 

[56] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

There  was  no  sound.  It  was  cloudy  and  pitchy- 
dark.  No  wind  as  yet,  but  a  feeling  as  if  a 
wind  would  rise. 

"Now  it's  good-bye,"  I  said.  "I've  kept 
my  promise,  and  I'll  wait,  what's  more,  till 
the  wind  blows  you  away." 

"Don't  put  me  down  for  a  minute,"  she 
begged.     "I've  something  else  to  tell  you." 

"What  is  it?"  I  asked.  "You  were  talking 
all  last  night." 

"Oh,  nothing  about  me  indeed,"  she 
whispered.  "I've  nothing  more  to  tell.  But 
I  wanted  you  to  know  why  I  told  you  about 
myself  and  didn't  ask  about  yourself  at  all 
was  only  because,  being  so  close  to  you,  I 
could  learn  and  feel  and  understand  all  there 
was  in  your  heart.  I  knew  all  that  you  had 
done  and  suffered  in  your  life  from  the  begin- 
ning until  now." 

"Then  you  know  of  a  poor  thing,"  I  said,  "a 
black  and  hollow  thing,  a  wasted  thing." 

"Yes,"  she  went  on.  "And  I  knew  that  you 
were  thinking  that,  but  I  wanted  to  tell  you 
that  I  didn't  think  so  at  all.     I  think  you've 

[57] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

done  very  well  in  spite  of  what  people  call 
your  failure,  and  you've  always  tried  your  best. 
Though  fame  has  never  come  to  you,  you've 
set  your  teeth  and  gone  on,  haven't  you,  and 
never  chattered  or  complained  ?  And  I  wanted 
to  tell  you  that  I  love  you  for  it." 

"I  never  heard  anything  so  ridiculous  in  my 
life,"  I  said.  "How  can  you  love  me?  We're 
absolutely  unsuited  to  each  other  in  every  way. 
Not  a  tradition  or  a  taste  in  common.  Be- 
sides, you're  dead.  Quite  dead  in  one  sense 
and  almost  dead  in  the  other.  What's  the 
use  of  talking  about  such  things  ?" 

"Now  don't  pretend  to  be  cross  when  you're 
not,"  she  went  on.  "That's  childish.  I've 
told  you  this  for  a  very  selfish  reason.  I 
thought  that  instead  of  running  the  risk  of 
being  blown  about  this  great  prairie  for  ever, 
if  you  could  learn  to  love  me  just  enough 
in  return,  my  soul  perhaps  might  pass  utterly 
into  yours  and  in  that  way  there  would  be 
quite  an  end  of  me.  Now  don't  interrupt  me  in 
what  I'm  saying.  You  need  a  little  something 
like  this  added  to  you,  a  little  common  sense, 

[58] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

a  little  patience,  a  little  tenderness  towards 
helpless  things.  You  need  it  badly,  and  it's 
very  conceited  of  you  to  pretend  you  don't. 
And,  oh,  my  dear,"  she  cried,  and  the  very 
soul  of  her  seemed  to  be  throbbing.  "Love  is 
often  like  this,  you  know  —  how  is  it  that  you 
don't  know  ?  —  Death  to  give,  but  always  life 
to  him  that  will  dare  take  the  offered  love. 
And  how  gladly  one  dies  to  give  it !" 

"I  do  not  love  you,"  I  said,  "and  I  won't 
pretend  to.  I  have  never  loved  anyone  and  I 
never  will.  It's  not  worth  it.  I  made  up  my 
mind  to  that  long  ago." 

"Very  well,"  she  said.  "It  doesn't  matter. 
Please  put  me  down." 

I  put  her  down. 

"Good-bye,"  I  said. 

"Good-bye,"  said  she. 

And  then  I  knelt  there  for  an  hour  or  more. 
It  was  dark ;  I  could  not  see  her,  and  not  an- 
other word  did  we  say.  Waiting  so,  I  felt  how 
dreadful  eternity  must  be. 

At  last  I  heard  it  rise  in  the  far  distance,  the 
northwest  wind.     Shaking   and   shrieking   and 

[59] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

rumbling  it  came,  in  leaps  of  gusty  anger  with 
silence  in  between.  I  set  my  teeth  or  I  must 
have  cried  out  in  fear.  But  she  made  never  a 
sound.  Then  it  was  on  us,  brutal,  vindictive. 
I  could  not  help  it;  I  flung  myself  along  the 
ground  to  shield  her,  groping  with  my  hands 
where  I  thought  she  must  be.  My  neck  was 
bare  and  in  a  moment  I  felt  the  frail  little 
thing  she  was  fluttering  close  to  me. 

"I  can't,"  she  pleaded  in  agony,  "I'm  afraid. 
It's  so  cold  and  merciless  and  strong.  I  once 
had  asthma  as  a  child.  Take  me  back  to  that 
selfish  city.  At  least  they'll  understand  me 
there." 

"No,  no,"  I  whispered,  "not  back  to  that. 
That's  worse  than  any  hell.  We  musn't  be 
cowards,  we  two,  must  we  ?" 

"But  I  can't  be  lonely  through  eternity," 
she  wailed.  "I  can't,  I  can't.  It  isn't  fair 
to  ask  me." 

Suddenly  I  began  to  shake  as  if  a  very  ague 
were  on  me.  I  choked.  I  turned  on  my  side 
for  air.  I  crushed  her  soul  between  my  hands. 
I  ground  it  to  my  breast. 

[60] 


Souls   on    Fifth 

I  threw  my  face  up  to  the  dark  above  and  a 
cry  came  from  me  that  surely  God  Himself 
might  have  heard.  "Oh,  my  dear  little  soul, 
my  dear  little  soul!"  And  the  ice  within  me 
broke  and  the  tears  sprang.  I,  that  had  not 
shed  a  tear  since  I  could  remember ! 

Before  ever  the  tears  could  fall  my  hands  that 
had  held  her  were  empty  and  my  lips  that  would 
have  kissed  her  foiled.  The  little  soul  had 
vanished. 

But  my  soul  was  full  of  joy.  And  the  wind, 
as  I  lay  there,  could  not  harm  me  nor  the  night 
make  me  afraid. 


[61] 


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